The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper


Vol. 17 No. 15 - January 25, 2017

reel time

Living seawalls

Reel time

rUSTY CHINNIS | sun

The living seawall install in Palmetto is
proving the viability of the concept.

 

 

Sarasota is the birthplace of a new concept in local seawall design called living seawalls, and Sarasota Bay Watch and President Larry Stults can be credited with getting them acceptance. In all started in April of 2015, when the Gulf Coast Community Foundation announced its $500,000 Innovation Challenge to promote new ideas and businesses in our coastal Blue Economy. Stults sprang into action to form the Living Shoreline team to compete for top honors.
The team consisted of Sarasota Bay Watch, Reef Ball Foundation, Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and Marie Selby Gardens. The team's goal was to use the prize money to spearhead a workshop among coastal engineers and marine contractors to come. Traditional seawalls, which have hardened the majority of our waterfront property, are a poor substitute for the natural, mangrove rich shorelines the Gulf Coast once enjoyed.

We have seawalls for a reason. They protect land and structures from erosion and storm impacts. Sarasota Bay Watch and Stults was particularly interested in the innovation of eco-friendly seawalls because they felt there was tremendous opportunity to build new technology that satisfied both the environment and the community. The Living Shorelines team finished sixth in the Innovation Challenge without any prize money. What they did have, however, was worth much more.

The team sparked the interest of local media and was featured in a number of local news stories. The media exposure caught the attention of city of Palmetto Mayor Shirley Bryant, who was searching for a way to make Palmetto's new bulwark, which was recently installed around the foot of the Green Bridge on the Manatee River, more environmentally friendly.

She contacted Living Shoreline member Todd Barber, president of Reef Ball Foundation to learn more about living seawalls. And in short order Reef Ball Foundation and Sarasota Bay Watch were putting their heads together, along with marine manufacturer Reef Innovations, to develop nature-based modules that would create abundant marine habitat around Palmetto's seawall.

The modules also reduce or eliminate wave reflection, keeping wave energy from re-radiating back out into the bay to disturb other shorelines and intercept wave energy before it can impact the seawall behind. Living seawalls are built with special cement the pH of which is adjusted to be compatible with the marine environment, and they incorporate fiberglass reinforcement to provide a strong, long lived structure. The absence of steel rebar avoids rusting and spalling of the metal, a common source of seawall failure. The modules are anchored into the sediment to lock them in place and prevent any movement during storms and hurricanes.

In less than two years' time, the spark of an idea has roared to life, with the city of Sarasota also planning its own living seawall pilot project at O'Leary's. Not only will this create abundant marine habitat along a new erosion control seawall being install there, but it will become demonstration site for the all the visitors to Island Park and potentially the beginning of a series of projects to help soften Sarasota hardened shores.

This is the start of an exciting new era in next-generation seawalls and the birth of a whole new industry within our Blue Economy. Sarasota is the epicenter for this new movement, and at ground zero, you'll find Sarasota Bay Watch.

Note: Thanks to Larry Stults president of Sarasota Bay Watch for the information in this article.


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